MADRID (Spain) - SPANISH police have cracked down on a gang suspected of swindling up to 65 million euros (S$126.8 million) from foreigners in real estate scams.

BERLIN - GERMANY'S jobless rate dipped in November to 7.1 per cent as the number of people out of work hit a new 16-year low, but the national labour agency warned on Thursday of increasing signs that the economic crisis will soon hit the job market in Europe's biggest economy.

The unadjusted unemployment rate declined from 7.2 per cent in October, the Federal Labor Agency said. It said a total of 2.988 million people were registered as jobless - 8,000 fewer than a month earlier and the lowest level since November, 1992.

JERUSALEM - ISRAELI Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni called on acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Thursday to quit his post immediately after authorities announced they will press graft charges against him.

'The prime minister has to take a leave of absence, there's no other choice,' Ms Livni said at a meeting of the governing Kadima party in the Tel Aviv satellite town of Petah Tikva.